stanley gold issue 19.qxd:Jerkins feature.qxd
28/1/11
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PROFILE
When Stanley Gold was 22 years old he was looking for a career as an accountant. Then, by chance, he opted instead to become a groom, having never even sat on a horse or been to a racetrack. Forty years later the Florida trainer has gone on to saddle Awesome Feather to win at the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs. By Bill Heller
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“You can’t make a better horse than how God made him. You can make a horse worse. That’s very easy to do. That’s what training is about: to get him to do as best as he can physically and mentally” 20 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 19
ORTY years ago, Stanley Gold’s future seemed safe. Secure. Certain. He was 22 years old, and he had parlayed an internship in his senior year at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey into a job as a public auditor at one of the biggest accounting firms in Manhattan, Arthur Young and Co. “Normally, you’re a public auditor for three years and become a CPA,” Gold said. “I worked there for a year.” He didn’t make it to a second, succumbing to what his mom called wanderlust. “It was the ’60s,” he said. “I took a leave of absence. I traveled around the country in a van for five or six months, 20,000 miles. I wound up at Monmouth Park. I was living in the area and renting a house after I graduated from college. I was commuting to Manhattan.” A female companion, who had been a hotwalker for Grover “Buddy” Delp (of Spectacular Bid fame), convinced him to become a groom. For Gold, that was rather remarkable. “I had never been on a horse,” he said. “I’d never been on a pony ride. I’d never been to a racetrack.” He’s never left the racetrack since. And in 2009, after more than two decades as a rather anonymous trainer based at Calder Race Course in Miami, Gold hit the jackpot with his two-year-old Jackson Bend. After finishing second by half a length in his debut, the homebred ripped off five consecutive victories culminating in a sweep of the rich Florida Stallion Series. He was just one of seven two-year-olds to do so in the series’ 28 year history. Nine days after Jackson Bend won, Gold’s final start as a juvenile, Gold’s only client, Fred and Jane Brei’s Jacks Or Better Farm in Ocala, sold a majority interest in the horse to Robert LaPenta. “I didn’t want to cash out on Jackson Bend,” Brei said. “I live and race in Florida, and I feel it is important to give a good Florida-bred a chance to succeed.” LaPenta’s trainer, Hall of Famer Nick Zito, would handle Jackson Bend as a threeyear-old. “When Jackson left, I thought I lost the chance of a lifetime,” Gold said. “I said, ‘How do you top that?’” He found a way. Her name was Awesome Feather. She was even better. And she’d
Awesome Feather wins the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs
depart Gold’s stable even quicker after her last two-year-old start than Jackson Bend did his. Gold isn’t used to superstars coming out of his Calder barn, though he’d previously trained multiple stakes winners Honey Honey Honey and Bayou’s Lassie, who won six straight races including the Grade 3 Frances S. Genter Stakes. “I refer to it as being Calder-ized,” Gold said. “You get used to the horses you’re racing with. Remember, we’re not breeding horses that have blueblood pedigrees. We’re living on hopes. We talk about horses out-running their pedigrees.” Jackson Bend’s sire, Hear No Evil, stood for $3,500. Awesome Feather’s sire, Awesome of Course, stood for half as much. Gold began 2010 wishing he was saddling Jackson Bend when he made his three-yearold debut in the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park on January 23rd, in which the colt was second. “It’s six miles away, and you find out how good he is,” Gold said. “I would have loved to go over there. I would